My Glass Slippers
by Drag Queen of Hearts
Summary: Lily thinks back over her long, tumultuous relationship with James one evening, and comes to a conclusion. Cute one-shot of my favorate couple. R and R.


Disclaimer; I WISH it were mine.

Hope you all enjoy it My Glass Slippers 

My favorate fairy tale was always Cinderella. The story of a girl who dreamed of all that could be – and got it. For the longest time after discovering I was a witch, I believed in that story. In my eleven – year – old mind, I equated witch to fairy and decided that someday, my Prince Charming would come bursting out of the woodwork to sweep me off of my feet, and put a pair of glass slippers on them.

Then fifth year and my first real boyfriend came along, and I was sadly disillusioned. I wept for weeks after we broke up, until one day, I talked to a boy I had never really talked to before. Sure, there was the occasional 'can I borrow a quill?' and the 'can you pass the marmalade?' but for the most part we each continued in our own worlds, meeting with great civility for brief amounts of time. We talked that day – he approached me because he needed – you guessed it – a quill, and I burst into tears for no reason at all.

Even in fifth year, he was a good person. It was buried, deep, deep inside at the time, but James was never one to turn up his nose at a damsel in distress, and at that moment, that's exactly what I was. So I cried into his shoulder, listened to him talk, and then laughed at some of his jokes. It wasn't a moment that stands out in my mind because it was extraordinary, or special, or sweet, or romantic. In fact, I barely remember that conversation at all. The only thing I can remember is him cracking a particularly crude joke about my ex-boyfriend – a joke I just wasn't ready to hear yet.

I slapped him with a resounding 'smack', and left the room crying just as heavily as I had been before he took it upon himself to 'make me feel better'. I'm not sure exactly what changed in our relationship that day, if what we had could even be described such. I just know that the following morning, James asked me out for the first time – and I turned him down.

Over the following months, I came to detest James rather heavily. He asked me to go out with him startlingly often, at least 3 times a week, and I resented it. I convinced myself that James Potter wasn't worth it. I chose to see him in a new light – where I had once laughed at his pranks, now I scorned them; where I had once seen his prowess in transfiguration – or in all things really – as impressive, I now saw him as a show off. I suppose, in fifth year, I fell out of love with James, for I had always had the teensiest bit of a crush on him before. He wasn't handsome, he wasn't dashing, or rakish, or rugged, but he was undeniably cute in his own way. I didn't really talk to him, and he never took it upon himself to talk to me, but he always had a secretive gleam in his eyes, a sort of 'I know something that you don't, but if you ask, _maybe_ I'll tell you' look, that was always accompanied with a twinkle of laughter.

Unfortunately, he also had bad timing. He began to torture Snape that year. It wasn't as if he and Sirius hadn't teased him before, but where before it had been almost lighthearted on James's side, now it seemed aimed to kill. Snape and I had been friends for a long time, and even though our relationship had been strained from my being placed in Gryffindor, and his being placed in Slytherin, we had still maintained a small bit of what we had. Unfortunately, it was James that tore us apart. It was James that asked me out and publicly humiliated me whenever he got the chance. It was James who I fell out of love with that year. That year, one of my glass slippers broke.

Cinderella was still my favorate fairy tale, and I still believed that someday my Prince Charming would enter stage left. But no longer could I believe in all the dreams I had held onto before that year, because whether James (or I) had known it or not, I had built a good portion of those dreams around him.

Then sixth year began, and that year, James and I had a great many rows. Within the first week of sixth year, we weren't truly speaking. By Halloween, he professed to have the same hatred for me I had claimed to harbor for him. For a while, I was delighted. He didn't talk to me, and I didn't talk to him. Until around February of that school year, we bounced along independently.

Then, one night in February, I was patrolling – I was a prefect – and I saw James running down the hall at a breakneck speed. It's odd that, even though I have countless other bad memories of James, that's only one of two that still exists in my mind.

I stopped him as he came hurtling down by running in front of him, "Potter, what are you doing?" In hindsight, I suppose that wasn't the best of things to say in that situation. James had friends to save (even though I didn't know it at the time), and I, as prefect, had points I ought to have removed from him. It didn't matter, however, as James stopped for only a second before running right past me, and I followed him.

I followed him as he ran out onto the grounds, and down into the hole at the base of the Womping Willow. I followed him through the long, dark tunnel, until I saw, at the end of the tunnel, Snape.

It all became startlingly clear several hours later once all had been explained, but in that moment, there were only two thoughts in my mind – whether or not Snape knew about Remus, and what he was doing there. I helped James save Snape that night, and I was there when Snape spat at Sirius, James, and Remus –Peter wasn't anywhere in sight. On that night, I saw a side of James I had never seen before, and I proposed a truce.

I didn't immediately fall in love with him, or think him to be any less arrogant – I just saw a side of him I had never seen before, and decided that he was a curiosity enough for me to want to get to know him. He showed huge levels of maturity and responsibility that night, and he earned something – my (and Snape's, although he never would have admitted it) respect.

So we continued through sixth year as frenemies, being friends when we chose to, and enemies when we chose not to. Nothing truly remarkable happened between us until this last year, our seventh and final year. James and I were made Head Boy and Head Girl, and we found new reasons to be civil. We convinced ourselves when we became friends that it was all for the good of the school – Hogwarts couldn't deal with warring head students. It was decided that we should take all of our patrols together – purely for the sensibility of it, of course – this way, no one would ever notice that James was always missing the same nights Remus was. When we ended up going to the Christmas Ball together, we convinced ourselves it was the only reasonable thing to do, since we had to open the ball together with the first dance anyways.

This year, amidst the half-truths we've told to pardon us being friends, I fell in love with him all over again. It wasn't slow or gradual, either. About three months after we became friends, it hit me over the head that he was the cutest boy I had ever had the good fortune to meet, and that was that. Now, two months after the Christmas Ball (February again), I'm sitting on a window seat in the Heads Common Room, pretending I'm not looking out the window where James is conducting Quidditch practice.

It's rather pathetic, actually. Who goes from loving someone, to detesting them, to loving them again in a three-year window? It's like a spider. It seems impossible when you think about it (eight legs?) but it actually does exist. And now Sirius is walking into the room, and I turn quickly from the window to the transfiguration textbook in my lap, all the while asking myself why I even bother.

"Pining after lover-boy?" Sirius has no subtlety and no tact. Unfortunately, he's also one of the few people who realized that whenever James looked straight at me, I blushed a little (I hate red hair), so I'm forced to put up with him on a daily basis as he pokes his nose into my business.

"No," I reply, holding up my transfiguration book, my eyes glued to the page the entire time as though I actually give a damn what it says. Sirius knows instantly that I'm lying. He and I have become eerily close this year, as he took it upon himself to needle me about James.

"Look Lily," he says, "why don't you just tell James how you feel?"

I give a terribly unlady – like snort. "Alright, Black. And then I'll just gauge my heart out with a rusty spoon and skewer it on a stick."

"Ahh, Lilykins," He begins. Where he got that nickname I'll never know. "That's what I love about you – your happy sense of humor."

I smirk at him and turn to resume looking out the window – it's ridiculous to pretend I'm not watching James now anyways –, and find that Quidditch practice is over. James, in his shirtless glory, has disappeared.

Rather put out, I scowl at Sirius, who's already made himself comfortable on the couch. Moving over to sit next to him, I get comfortable as he puts his arm around me. We sit staring into the fire for a long, long moment, until we both go to speak at the same time, and start laughing uncontrollably. James walks in a couple minutes later, and as Sirius, James and I talk, I find myself watching James for all I've ever liked in him.

I see how he smiles the slightest bit crooked, even though his glasses are on perfectly straight. I see how he looks at the newspaper Sirius has pulled out of his pocket, and how he comments on the muggle deaths and attacks as though he saw them personally – with a determined voice that borders on heartbroken. I watch him calm Sirius down when Sirius looks ready to kill someone over something or the other. I watch him smile at me for only a second before turning back to Sirius, and I decide, rather recklessly, that I'll ask James out tomorrow. If he could ask me out so many times, despite the fact that I always said no, I can ask him out once, can't I?

Scene Break 

I walk into the great hall, shaking in my boots. My knees are knocking together altogether attractively. I look around, realize that James isn't there, and I'm not sure whether to feel let down or relieved. I walk down the table, and find Sirius sitting with my friend, Caryn, and sit down opposite them. Sirius gives me a wink, and informs me that James will be down in a minute. I nod rather weakly and begin tearing a piece of toast to shreds, as Caryn watches me, amused by the whole affair.

James walks into the hall five minutes later, and walks straight towards me, and starts talking. I'm not quite sure what he's saying, something about 'feelings that never changed', but I'm far too preoccupied with my own nerves to really hear much else. I see Sirius looking at James and I in amusement and shock, and open my mouth purposefully. I'm just about to close it again, when Sirius smirks at me, and mouths 'coward'. I open my mouth again, and turn to James.

"Have you heard a word I've just said?" He interrupts me.

I look up, "Of course I have."

James looks at me inscrutably, "So…do you feel the same?"

I nod, as though I know exactly what he's talking about. "Of course," I say smoothly.

"You didn't listen at all did you?" James smirks.

I shake my head no, and open my mouth, intending to salvage what little dignity I have left. "Will you go out with me?" Oops…I think I screamed that…and I'm not actually sure I even meant to say it. The hall grows silent, and James looks rather shocked, before smiling his crooked smile.

"You mean you actually were listening?"

I look at him, thoroughly confused. He looks at my face and starts laughing, and I can see my second, last glass slipper falling to the floor in my minds eye, when James grabs my shoulders and kisses me. And it's rather nice. Very nice, and the slightest bit mind – numbing actually, and I feel James wrapping his arms around me, and his lips on mine, and when he pulls away, I don't quite want him to leave just yet.

But he doesn't kiss me again, as I'm telepathically urging him to – instead, he leans his forehead against mine, and smiles, "Of course I will."

I grin, and this time, I reach up (yank, really) to kiss him. In my minds eye, I can see two little glass slippers floating on cloud nine right beside me.

Best of all, here's my Prince Charming, holding me in his arms.

The End 

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